Word.ws English Dictionary

person of interest

person of interest noun: someone who police have reason to believe may have a connection to a crime, or to possess important information relating to that crime, but who has not been accused or charged by authorities nor been officially deemed to be a suspect.

Noun

person of interest (plural persons of interest or people of interest)

  1. (Canada, US) Someone who police have reason to believe may have a connection to a crime, or to possess important information relating to that crime, but who has not been accused or charged by authorities nor been officially deemed to be a suspect.
    • Tice denies involvement in any conspiracy. . . . Still, Morgan says Tice and "three or four other people" remain "persons of interest" in the investigation.2009 August 22, Tim Padgett, “The Pensacola Adoptive Couple's Murder: A Hit?”, in Time, retrieved 19 Nov 2015
    • Abdellatif has been interviewed five times by Australian security services since the dropping of the charges and remains a "person of interest" to the federal police.2013 September 26, “Sayed Abdellatif inquiry will report to Tony Abbott, who called him a 'jihadist'”, in Guardian, UK, retrieved 19 Nov 2015

Forms of person of interest

pluralpersons of interest
pluralpeople of interest

Questions about person of interest

What does person of interest mean?
Person of interest means someone who police have reason to believe may have a connection to a crime, or to possess important information relating to that crime, but who has not been accused or charged by authorities nor been officially deemed to be a suspect.
What part of speech is person of interest?
Person of interest is a noun.
What is the plural of person of interest?
The plural of person of interest is persons of interest.

Words near person of interest in the dictionary

  1. person deprived of liberty
  2. person from Porlock
  3. person having ordinary skill in the art
  4. person in the street
  5. person in the streets
  6. person of interest
  7. person of ordinary skill in the art
  8. person under train
  9. person unknown
  10. person up
  11. person-day

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: person of interest (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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